Relentless Intolerance
by Lord Zeuss
Summary: LSF Exile, pre-KOTOR 2. Kuryama Nari, sole Jedi survivor of the Malachor V massacre, returns to the Jedi and the unforgiving Council. Written in two hours while on a Jedi Council hate high.


Relentless Intolerance

Written by Lord Zeuss

Dozens of hollow footsteps echoed on the floor of the great Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Twenty Temple Vanguards escorted a lone, gray-robed Jedi at gun-point. This was General Kuryama Nari; sole Jedi survivor of the Malachor V massacre. With a single command - hers - the war with the Mandalorians was ended. Hundreds of thousands of Republic soldiers and Mandalorians alike, and hundreds of Jedi Knights, died in that horrific battle. They died because she gave the order.

Kuryama had authorized the use of a machine that tore Malachor V, and everything else in its path, apart. The planet was ripped to shreds, pulverized, and crushed back together in a hideous mockery of the world it had once been. Nothing on or around the planet survived. Every single ship in orbit was caught by the enormous gravity well initiated by the activation of the mass shadow generator; the instrument of Malachor's doom.

While the battered remnants of the Republic fleet engaged the full force of the Mandalorians above the skies of Malachor V, the singularity caused by the generator swallowed the planet and sucked both fleets down to the same destruction as befell the planet itself. Jedi aboard the observing vessels screamed in agony as the planet's death throes consumed them through the Force. By the end, only Kuryama remained alive of all the Jedi Knights with the fleet.

But Malachor had done its damage.

She was irrevocably changed. The dead planet echoed its torment within her, despite having failed to drag her down into its violent death as it had all the other Jedi. But its pain persisted: Malachor had wrenched the Force from her; she was deaf to its voice, numb to its touch, blind to its light. Her demeanor was of one condemned to death. Or of one already dead.

Kuryama would now face the Council's judgment.

* * *

Kuryama entered the Council Chamber. She saw the Masters assembled before her: Vrook, Kavar, Kai-El, Atris, and Vash. Their accusatory faces spoke louder than if they had been screaming; their verdict was already decided. The proceedings were a mere formality.

Vrook spoke first, not bothering to keep the obvious reproach out of his voice. "Do you know why we have called you here?"

"So that you might pass judgment on me, on Revan, and on every other Jedi with the courage to answer their calling and defend the Republic?" Kuryama answered with a question.

Vrook scowled at this and ignored her.

Kai-El spoke, instead. "We Jedi are guardians of the peace, and have been for centuries. This call to war undermines all that we stand for."

Kuryama if she continued this line of argument it would inevitably lead her to only one outcome. But since Malachor, her life had come to mean nothing to her: she had nothing left to lose.

"Yes, we are guardians of the peace. And in times of peace we are able to function in that capacity. This is not a time of peace. Nor was it a time of peace since the first moment the Mandalorians began their war. In war there is no peace, can be no peace. When peace does not exist it cannot be protected, it can only be restored," she said with conviction.

With an acid tongue, Atris spoke up to rebuke her. "There was no peace because you and all the rest of the traitorous Jedi gave the Mandalorians what they wanted. You gave them war. You took it upon yourself to hold the fate of the galaxy in your hands. Is Revan your Master now? Do you believe yourself wiser than the Council?" Atris glared at her while she ranted.

Rather than answer her barbed questions, Kuryama continued to make her own point. "I swore, Councilors you swore, all Jedi swore to defend the Republic and the galaxy. You would have had us break that sacred oath, turn our backs on the Republic and billions of innocent lives and allow the Mandalorians free reign in the galaxy.

"Jedi are guardians of the peace. You said so yourself, Master Kai-El. To sit back and do nothing while worlds burned, while millions suffered and died, to let chaos reign supreme, would be the ultimate betrayal of that very ideal. How can there be peace when the aggressors are allowed to do as they please? Aggressors are the enemies of peace, the enemies of the Jedi.

"If Jedi are not to go to war to protect the innocent, if Jedi are not uphold their own oath of duty, then we are meaningless; without purpose, calling, or direction. We become merely slaves to our own Force-sensitivity and captives our fallible Code."

Atris' face flushed red, contorting with fury, contrasting starkly with her white robes. "How dare you speak such _blasphemy_!"

"Then you admit our own oaths are hollow; only blind devotion to the Jedi Code and the flawed wisdom of the Council is acceptable for a Jedi. If so, then I am glad to have made the choices I did, for you have proven to me here and now that the Jedi Order is unworthy of respect and unfaithful to those who depend upon it," Kuryama pressed. "The purpose of a Jedi Knight is to protect life. Not merely their own, but the lives of others. The foundation of the Jedi Order lies in this concept. But in these thousands of years it has been forgotten; twisted into mindless obedience to the Jedi Council who, in their absolute power, decide for billions what their fate shall be.

"What did you, Councilors, do to protect the lives of those of the destroyed Outer Rim planets that fell during the beginning of the Mandalorians' crusade as the Republic begged you for help? You did nothing.

"Revan and Malak saw what you refused to open your eyes to; they rose to a Jedi's true calling while you condemned them. Those Jedi you called traitorous were more noble than you. You sat in your chambers while worlds burned because the time had come to remember your calling and you shrank away from it! And you sit here now judging me for being more Jedi than you!"

No one in the Council broke the silence left when Kuryama stopped speaking. Her words rang in the ears of each Master, presenting her unshakable conviction that she had done the right thing. It was clear to all of them that she did not regret a thing.

Master Kavar finally broke the stillness. "The reasons do not change the facts, Kuryama. This Council finds you guilty of treason against the Jedi Code and open defiance of the Jedi Council. This is a crime that cannot go unpunished."

Vash was the one to pronounce the sentence. "You are exiled, and a Jedi no longer."

This was the only possible outcome. Kuryama had known she couldn't hope for a simple execution to end her now worthless life. It was against the Jedi Code. The irony would have been unbearable had she been able to care.

Vrook leveled his gaze at Kuryama. "Surrender your lightsabre," he commanded.

Kuryama looked at them then - studied their faces. Vrook held a condemning frown. Atris glared at her in hatred. Kai-El and Kavar regarded her with sorrow. And Vash stared at her with deep disappointment and disapproval.

She drew forth her elegant, double-bladed, viridian-hued sabre and stared at it lovingly for what would be the last time. The lightsabre was the symbol of a Jedi, it stood for everything they were and are. It was like an extension of the very person; an inseparable part of what made them who they were. Kuryama saw hers as an embodiment of her spirit. Her spirit would remain free from the manipulations of those fools sitting in the Council chairs, despite what they may do to her body.

Kuryama suddenly hurled her lightsabre at the glass walls of the Council Chamber. The walls shattered in a million pieces as the lightsabre sailed out into the open air of the city to fall for miles.

The ceaseless wind of the upper city filled the Council Chamber as the Jedi Council sat in shock at her unexpected action. Atris and Vrook now regarded her with open contempt.

From an interior pocket in her robe, Kuryama brought a much smaller, single-bladed, blue sabre. Her spirit was free, and she would now leave them with a reminder of the Jedi she had been.

With a deft touch she ignited the blue blade.

Vrook, Vash, and Atris leaped from their seats and brought their own lightsabres out in a flash, prepared to kill her in a heartbeat should she attack.

Rather than attacking the five Masters, as they expected, Kuryama instead stood her ground and began twirling the brilliant blue sabre as they watched. When it had enough momentum screaming through its blade to sear through a starship hull, she brought it down with furious intent on the center stone that stood in the middle of the chamber; cleaving it in two and leaving the blade embedded in the remains.

Kuryama turned away from the five Jedi, casting her dark cloak to the floor of the chamber as she departed, never once looking back.


End file.
